Dr. Karpeisky earned his
Doctorate degree in Organic Chemistry from the N. D. Zelinsky Institute
of Organic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. He
most recently served as Senior Scientist at Transgenomic, Inc., where
he was responsible for scale-up, process development and technology
transfer to outside manufacturing facilities of standard and highly
modified monomers for oligonucleotide synthesis. From 1993 to 2002 Dr.
Karpeisky held various positions from Scientist to a Senior Group
Leader at Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc (now Sirna Therapeutics) where
he made a substantial contribution to therapeutic ribozymes design,
mechanism of action and structure-activity relationships. Prior to 1993
he was a Research Scientist and a Group Leader at the Laboratory of
Biotechnology, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of
Sciences, working on novel nucleoside analogs with antiviral/anticancer
activity. He also was one of the founders of ChimTech, Ltd, Moscow,
Russia, one of the first Russian biopharmaceuticals private
enterprises, where he also served as a Senior Scientist. Dr. Karpeisky
has authored and coauthored 50 papers and 35 patents

Shawn Zinnen, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Zinnen graduated with a Ph.D.
in Biochemistry and Genetics from Duke University and conducted
post-doctoral research at the University of Colorado at Boulder as an
NIH Fellow. Dr. Zinnen was previously Associate Director of
Biochemistry at Sirna Therapeutics Inc. where he served in various
critical roles driving compounds from discovery stage and into human
clinical trials and was a key decision maker on the path to four
Investigational New Drug filings with the FDA. He invented Sirna
Therapeutic Inc.'s (previously Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals Inc.) clinical
stage compound Herzyme, an anti-Her-2 targeted ribozyme, that was
evaluated in human breast cancer trials. Dr. Zinnen has managed
interdisciplinary teams of industry and academic scientists solving
pharmacology related problems for diseases ranging from cancer to
asthma to macular degeneration. He has authored or coathored 17 papers
and 25 patents.